Rod Taylor, “The Time Machine” (1960) Photo Courtesy MGM / The Hollywood Archive
Australian-born actor Rod Taylor, who starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller, “The Birds,” and the 1960 Sci-Fi Classic “The Time Machine,” died this week in Los Angeles, CA. Taylor was 84.
Originally from Sydney Australia, he built a long career in the US in film and television, working with directors including Hitchcock and Antonioni, and alongside some of Hollywood’s best-known stars. He had a style that seemed a mixture of the suave and the rugged. Later in his career he leaned to more tough-guy roles.
Looking back on his career, he told an interviewer that he’d had “a sometimes wild youth. At that age I was going all over the world , working with the most beautiful people in the world and the most talented people in the world. It was just an incredible life”. But his focus, he said, was on the future. “I don’t revel in the memorabilia at all. I’m interested in what’s coming next.”
In 2009, Quentin Tarantino lured him out of retirement. In a more stately role, he played a cameo role as Winston Churchill in the film “Inglourious Basterds.”
According to CNN, He died at home Wednesday surrounded by his family and loved ones, his daughter, Felicia Taylor, said in a statement. No cause of death was given. She went on to say, “My dad loved his work. Being an actor was his passion – calling it an honorable art and something he couldn’t live without.”
Taylor is survived by his wife of more than three decades, Carol, and his daughter, Felicia.
Rod Taylor Trivia per IMDB:
- 20th Century-Fox considered him for the astronaut role in 1968’s Planet of the Apes (1968) but, perhaps seeking a bigger box office name, gave the part to Charlton Heston.
- Played Tarzan in an Australian children’s radio serial in the early 1950s.
- Attended East Sydney Art College.
- His second wife Mary Hilem died in May 2009.
- Taylor had completely retired from acting when Quentin Tarantino offered him the role of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Inglourious Basterds (2009). At first Taylor declined the part, suggesting that Tarantino should cast Albert Finney (who had played Churchill to great acclaim in The Gathering Storm (2002)), but eventually the director talked him into it.
- Was originally considered for the role of Roper in Enter the Dragon (1973) but was thought to be too tall, compared to the actor he’d be sharing many action scenes with, Bruce Lee — the part eventually played by John Saxon.